Living the Looney Tunes

Shanghai is full of hazards, clotheslines hung across sidewalks at neck level, taxi drivers that think pedestrians are traffic cones, bottomless pits in sidewalks - but I never thought I'd fall victim to Wile E. Coyote in China. The comically ineffectual predator must have been lurking around the corner when I walked briskly by today on my way to lunch on Beijing Lu and planted my foot firmly on a large banana peel. I zoomed down the sidewalk, limbs flailing wildly as I tried to keep my balance. When I realized I'd slipped on a banana peel I had to laugh at the cartoonish absurdity of it. I've managed several decades without slipping on a banana peel. But you can't count out anything in Shanghai. Will anvils fall out of the sky next? Beep beep.